Franklin Madis Collection of Mexican Documents:

A Guide

Correspondence, legal and financial documents, religious imprints, newspapers, broadsides, royal and government decrees, and state government documents. The collection is composed of unrelated Mexican manuscripts and printed materials collected by Franklin Madis. Included are items related to the Mexican-American War, 1846-1848. Most of the documents originated in Coahuila, Durango, Mexico City, Monterrey, New Spain, Nuevo Leon, Puebla, and Zacatecas. Although diverse, the materials reflect the government, politics, religion, law, and social life of Northern Mexico and South Texas.

Franklin Madis is a Duncanville, Texas, businessman and an active collector of books and manuscripts pertaining to Mexico and Texas, stamps, Amerindian artifacts, and other collectibles. Since 1952, Mr. Madis has been collecting materials relating to extraordinarily rich and diverse collection.

Franklin Madis was born in 1934 in Madison, Wisconsin. He spent most of his youth in the state, graduating from Madison East High School in 1952. Franklin acquired an abiding interest n Mexico when he accompanied his family to Monterrey shortly after he graduated. The Madises were contemplating purchasing a ranch there and, as a result, lived in the country for a year. Though Franklin wanted to stay, the family decided not to take up ranching there and moved to St. Paul, Minnesota. Despite the family’s decision, Franklin began traveling n Mexico regularly, buying antiques to sell in the United States. On one of his trips to Monterrey, he met Estela Lozano, the woman he would eventually marry in 1965.

During the 1950s and first half of the 1960s, Madis held a number of different jobs, including serving a stint in the Army, selling antiques, publishing a magazine for antique arms enthusiasts entitled Collector-Dealer, and selling seed to farmers in Wisconsin. After he married, he and his wife lived in Dallas, where he operated the Great Southwest Coin Exchange. In 1966, he started Eagle Fabric, a wholesale fabric house in Duncanville, a Dallas suburb. Madis continues to operate his fabric business today. The Madises have one daughter, who is married and lives in Arlington, Texas.

Madis began collecting Mexican documents and manuscripts in 1952 and to date has not stopped. Mrs. Madis’ background, coupled with his interest in Mexico and its history, has afforded he and his wife the opportunity to travel extensively and collect aggressively. Many of the items in the Madis Collection have come from individuals and families in Mexico and the United States, as well as from book and manuscript dealers in both countries.

Though Mr. Madis has never had a clearly articulated collecting plan, he has acquired manuscript items which reflect the government, politics, legal aspects, religious affairs, and social life of Northern Mexico and Southern Texas. Not only a collector, Mr. Madis has spent long hours studying the history of Mexico and reading (and even translating) the manuscript materials in his collection.

The collection dates from 1588-1910 and includes 170 file folders stored in four manuscript boxes. The collection is an artificial one in the sense that most of the items in it have no direct relation to the other items. The only common characteristics is that all items pertain to Mexico and all were collected by Mr. Madis. Because of these characteristics, the collection is difficult to generalize. It is comprised of a number of different types of documents, including sales titles for land and houses, wills, estate settlements, powers of attorney, legal papers, religious imprints, gubernatorial orders, royal orders and decrees, letters, laws, circulars, canceled loans, petitions, receipts, and official gazettes, Many of the items originated in New Spain, Monterrey, Durango, Nuevo Leon, Puebla, Zacatecas, Mexico City, and Coahuila. There are some materials relating to the Mexican American War, 1846-1848, in the collection.

This is one of several collections that Special Collections has received from Mr. Madis.

Organization

The collection is arranged in chronological order and divided in the following way: Box 1 includes material dating from 1588-March 14, 1789; Box 2 dates form 1793-June 20, 1823; Box 3 from January 22, 1825-May 12, 1849; and Box 4 dates from September 24, 1849-June 8, 1910.

Access

Open for research.

Literary Rights Statement

Permission to publish, reproduce, distribute, or use by any and all other current or future developed methods or procedures must be obtained in writing from Special Collections, The University of Texas at Arlington Library. All rights are reserved and retained regardless of current or future development or laws that may apply to fair use standards.

These materials are indexed under the following headings in the catalog of The University of Texas at Arlington Library. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons or places should search the catalog using these headings.

The Franklin Madis Collection was acquired in December, 1986, through a gift/purchase arrangement with Mr. and Mrs. Franklin Madis of Duncanville, Texas. The Madises transferred to The University of Texas at Arlington all legal title, copyright, and literary property rights to the materials in the collection. The collection was received on December 18, 1986, by Dr. Gerald Saxon and Ms. Maritza Arrigunaga, both on the staff of the Libraries’ Special Collections Division.